The second day at the Cape May Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Festival, we birded dunes, freshwater wetlands, meadows, ponds and protected beach at the Meadows and the Beanery.
Mute Swa
Forster Terns
Piping Plovers
Laughing Gulls
Muskrat
Great Black-backed Gull
The most special part of our trip was meeting up with our friend Mark Garland. Mark is a Naturalist who leads lots of field trips and tours. He took us to a couple great birding spots. At the beach, we saw Horseshoe Crabs and thousands of shorebirds including Gulls, Terns, Sandpipers, Plovers, Killdeer, Ruddy Turnstones and then some! Every year in the spring, the Horseshoe Crabs come to shore to lay their eggs. For two weeks, thousands of shorebirds come to eat the eggs to refuel before heading north.
Mark is showing us how the male Horseshoe Crab latches on to the female with their boxer claws.
Isn’t he attractive?
Mark is looking through some seaweed to show us a Horseshoe Crab egg.
He is showing us the egg. It is so tiny we could hardly see it. 
We saw a Tri-colored Heron. Another life bird!
Ferd and I went to Cape May, New Jersey for the Cape Maygration Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Festival. We didn’t realize until the last minute that we needed to take a Ferry over to Cape May. We were very lucky to catch the last Ferry over!
Our first day, we birded the trails, fields and forest edges of Higbee Beach and Cape May point State Park. Here is our group starting out.
Ferd observing from the observation deck.
Observing our group
And me
Here is an Oystercatcher on her nest.
Ruddy Ducks
Gadwalls
Blue-gray Gnatchcatcher
Turtle
Thousands of Gulls and Terns.
We saw many Summer Tanagers
Great Crested Flycatcher
Everywhere I turned, I saw birds!
Rat Snake
The Cape May Lighthouse
Mute Swan
Painted Turtle
What a great trip! I saw 70 species and it’s only the first day!
We saw so many, many shorebirds and other wildlife and many new life birds for me! Here are only a few of the things we saw.
